For this week, we want to hear your thoughts on the hand-made, the tangible, about all those things we experience when disconnected. Are we losing them, or learning to savor them more?

Tell us about a lost art or skill that you know, or that you think needs to be revived.

For fiction writers, craft a story that centers around a slower pace of life, where there’s always time to talk and Smartphones stay in your pocket at dinner. Or, better yet, tell us about the extremes of our fast pace of life. What would it be like if we never stopped to smell the roses?

What’s a skill that you think needs to be replaced by something better or automated? Use your imagination! Who knows, maybe someone else agrees that grocery shopping robots are the way of the future.

Tell us what it means to really lose something. Once something is gone, can it never come back?

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This writing challenge got me to thinking of the future and what it might be like. What if we were so far into the future we no longer had need of paper, trees were sacred, the government was out of control (not that they aren’t now but it could get so much worse). What if letter writing was a thing of myths? That is how far into the future, I wanted to go with this. So here is my take on that. It’s in the form of the lost art of letter writing. A woman writing in this lost art that she heard of from an elder that only read about it once in a long forgotten ancient tome, in a world that has revolted against the monitoring of all communication and oppression of the government. Yeah, it created a spark of creativity and this is what came from that spark.

I hope this writing finds you. I know it’s a very old-fashioned way of communicating. In fact, I always thought it was a myth. But we happened to find an elder who vaguely remembers their elder talking about this way of communicating with people. So I’m giving it a try in the hopes it will find its way to you.

We need to find a way of communicating all over again. After the devastation of our world from wars and natural disasters. The people don’t trust the government anymore as they continuously monitor all our other ways of communication. They arrest people on whims of ass kissers and people who have the money in the world. So most of the people have left the monitored cities and are now trying to survive in the wastelands that are outside the city bubbles. Some of the brave men, women and children have all ready either lost their lives through accidents or been picked up by the government drones as spies and been killed.

We can no longer trust the ways that we have known, so we need to find new ways. Or go so far back we use arcane ideas of our distant past. This is one of them. It’s called ‘letter writing’. Yes, I know, it’s not letter writing really, it’s more word writing. I’m just telling you what the elder called it. She called it ‘letter writing’ and said the people of the past used pens or pencils (still not sure I understand what those are) and something called paper. The paper came from trees! Can you imagine that Mike? Now the trees are so protected one doesn’t want to kill it, just to turn it into something else. The idea is ludicrous!

We, of course, don’t have paper, so I am writing this on cloth. I’m using a white shirt I found and a piece of stone that the elder said would work. It does too, it’s amazing! It is very laborious writing this way, as we were so used to just talking into our wrist units to talk to anyone, anywhere. No one really wrote to people. But we have to do something that won’t be tracked by the government of the world.

We are asking volunteers to carry these letters to different places to pass them on to the next person till it reaches its destination. We’ve been making plans for this for months. We discussed with a few elders that remember reading about ‘post offices’ way in the distant past. These post offices had people who delivered these letters to the people they were meant for. Of course, having post offices is unthinkable, but the eldest Elder remembered reading a book once long ago about what they called “pony Express”. They actually used horses for this! Can you wrap your brain around that, Mike? Animals! The only horses any of us have seen have been in controlled zoos. We could never get our hands on one of them. So we will use what we have plenty of resources of, people.

It will take months if not years to deliver this letter. And then it’s only if the person carrying it does not die from some horrible accident or get caught by the government drones. We can only hope for the best.

So Mike, I am hoping this letter thing does reach you at some point. So you will know that your life partner is well and alive and where I’m at. I will wait for your reply or for your coming to me in person which would be the best scenario. When we revolted and made a run for it, I couldn’t get in touch with you when you were half way across the world. It had to happen that quickly. But I knew where you were and that you were making a run for it at the same time. It’s just I’m here and you are there, but we are free Mike, free! The government will not find us, we are certain. I can only hope that you are just as safe and will make your way to me, if you haven’t all ready.

Let’s just hope this thing called letter writing actually works. The elder has assured me that she has read the it did indeed work, even though it was so terribly slow in it’s getting anywhere. So I am sending it your way. If you start this way and I start your way, maybe in a year or two we will finally be reunited. I am hoping the powers that be help us in this. Stay safe and I will try to do the same.

Some of my favorite quotes

Another Way to Be a Follower

Pictures and Images

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